THE GATHERED CHURCH

Certainly some of the pronouncements of emergent church leaders seem radical at first glance, but pollster Barna claims that in fact these churches are only offering a mere change in style. In his widely read book Revolution Barna calls for a more radical approach to the current church situation. He calls for us to change our concept of church as a gathering of people and to begin to build models of discipleship of individuals. Why is he calling for an ecclesiological paradigm shift at this moment?

Once I was in a hotel room with my wife and my two younger sons when the fire alarm went off about 1:30 A.M. It was a most unwelcome sound, made more so by the determination of one son to sleep through the piercing noise. For years Barna has sounded a fire alarm regarding holiness. Sliding belief systems, coupled with rises in acceptance of divorce, continued gradual slides in giving so that a materialistic lifestyle may be enhanced, while concrete concern for world poverty and health declines mark evangelicals according to his surveys.[1]Meanwhile evangelicals, in the name of “grace,” “acceptance” and our favorite – “not being legalistic” have determinatively continued to sleep.

In the New York Times, David Kuo says: “You see, evangelicals aren’t re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities” and he quotes John W. Whitehead as he sums it up this way: “[M]odern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality.”[2]

As the leader of our family of churches this all makes me feel ashamed. When I was a local church pastor it also shamed me, for I realized that, as much as I wanted it to be otherwise, what was being tracked in wide surveys was essentially true in our local church.

And that is the point, says Barna, in his most shocking conclusion to date. The local church has failed. Barna has told us time and time again that we must ramp up the local church in order to do serious evangelism coupled with serious discipleship. Now he is giving up. Not giving up on holiness and discipleship, no, not that. He is giving up on the local church.

There is “out there” he says, a vast army of people who never darken the door of the local church. It offers them nothing, so they don’t bother. However, they are strong in their commitment to Christ, and strong in their commitment to holiness. These people he calls “revolutionaries.”

He calls for a re-modeling of church. Besides the still dominant congregational form he notes the rise of: house churches; family faith experience; cyberchurch; and what he calls distributed models whereby people who never connect anywhere else go to independent worship events where local or more widely known worship leaders/bands play “extended sets of worship music for audiences who had no prior connection to each other.”[3]

Barna then goes out on a limb and defends this situation as theologically laudable. Imbedded in his discussion is the assertion that church as we understand it, that is, church as a gathering of people to worship, is not mandated in the New Testament. While he carefully nuances what he has to say, there is little doubt that church as a place where people commit to each other and intentionally gather on a regular basis for worship and instruction is, in his opinion, a man-made phenomenon.[4]

Once again, we discover that our ecclesiology determines everything we do as pastors. To the extent that we are blown along by the prevailing wind of doctrine, we will end up shipwrecked. To the extent that we steer a true course, no matter what the wind, we will bring our ship, (our congregation) safely into harbor. Let us then talk about the ecclesiology of the “gathered congregation” for a few moments. Or, to put it in other words, let us ask the basic question: “why go to church?”

God desires us to approach him in community.

A stress on community is not a denial of the value of the individual. In denouncing the individualism of evangelicalism some writers are failing to make this distinction. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, only individuals exist, abstract groups do not exist. Each individual person is called to make a personal commitment to Christ, have his/her sins washed away by Christ’s shed blood, and enter into that commitment realistically by being publicly baptized as a believer.

The stress on community does not deny the core value of the individual, but affirms it. At the same time, however, it also dynamically affirms the reality of the church. Here a bit of philosophy, so bear with me. As I mentioned above, C. S. Lewis teaches that abstract groups do not exist. What he means is that a nation, such as Canada, is an abstraction, for it is only a social/political construct. The laboring class, baby boomers, Ford Motor Company, none of these actually exist as concrete entities as do rocks, trees, drops of water, the planet earth, and most importantly, individual people. Furthermore, individual people, Lewis points out, are even more concrete than the rest of the items in the physical universe, for all the universe will someday disappear, except for people. Millions of years from now, each and every person will still exist – somewhere.

There is however one notable exception. The church is not an abstraction. It is one of those realities that has an outside and an inside. On the outside the church looks like any other social institution. It is organized, it has corporate status with the civil government, and is composed of individuals who are frequently prone to bickering and snarling or wonderful love and gentleness. So much for the outside – what we can see. On the inside, invisibly and spiritually, the church is a group of individuals who are supernaturally united – not abstractly but concretely – into oneness with each other and with Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. This is the point of the disquisition on the church’s koinoia with the cup and the loaf in 1 Corinthians 10:17.

Another simple way of putting all of this is to say this. I as an individual will exist in heaven. And, the church will exist in heaven (Ephesians 5:27, Hebrews 12:23).

The church is not just a bunch of individuals who get together. God has established the church as a community which is eternally real. This was his pleasure.

Ephesians 3:9, 10

And to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…

The mystery Paul is speaking of is that the Jews are the chosen people, the elect, but that it was prophesied that God was going to include the non-chosen in the kingdom. The solution is the cross, where all have access to God by faith.

Here is a meeting place, a home or a school gymnasium, or a church building. At a certain time each week a collection of people come through the doors. They may be citizens of various countries, some may be slaves and others free, some employees and others employers, males and females, Jews and Gentiles. Jesus points to this local church, and to the dwellers in the heavenly places he says -- Look at this. In the fallen economy of earth, these classifications divide people. But now they have been made into one new humanity (Ephesians 2:15) they are a holy temple.

The church gathered is, in its very gathering, a supernatural event that has spiritual significance to those gathered, to those who observe, and to God. Everything in church life is to demonstrate this living oneness (Ephesians 4: 3-6).

This is especially so when the church gathers in threefold unity, that is, unity with God by being a holy temple (Ephesians 2:21; 4:22-25, and especially 4:30 which is to be read in its context of congregational exhortation), unity with each other/leaders (Ephesians 4:1, 32, 5:21) and unity with other churches (1 Thessalonians 1:7,8; 4:9,10, 1 Corinthians 16:1, 19 verses that show an expectation of unity among churches, and also alignment with the particular family of churches, that is the cooperation of the Greek churches with each other and with the wider church).

This supernatural reality is strongly set forth when the church collectively participates in the holy services of The Lord’s Supper and Baptism. I have written about this in other places.

Thus, there is a sense in which the gathering of the church in worship is an offering of sweet incense unto the Lord (Revelation 8:3,4).

Individual believers require participation in an actual community in order to grow in holiness.

God has hardwired us to be nurtured in community. Hillary Clinton is right: it takes a village to grow a child and -- it takes a church to grow a devoted believer/follower of Jesus Christ.

Only in community will we learn from the Word faithfully taught. [5]Elders and congregation are to continually evaluate the orthodoxy of the teaching going on around them. Besides the instruction that prophesies are to be weighed by others (1 Corinthians 14:29), it is important that a local church deeply root itself in a family of churches, so that accountability for orthodoxy is shared by the wider gathered community. The New Testament epistles were written because the first century church understood that both in doctrine and in practice (orthodoxy and orthopraxis), they were accountable beyond the parameters of their local congregation. And the wider church, represented by the apostles, did hold them accountable.

Correct behavior is captured in the New Testament in exhortations to love one another. In community, we practice love for each other. It is interesting that Barna opens Revolution with two men on a golf course, one urging the other to practice in more meaningful ways his individualistic Christianity, demonstrating that community is necessary for teaching, accountability and love. Barna also begins to lower his flag when he talks about gatherings of people during the week and on-line.

I may talk about these alternate formats at another time, but here I wish only to point out, in contrast to Barna, that we are called to live a life of love towards other Christians. To do that, we require a formal commitment to gathering together so that we may know and care for one another in a way that truly transmits the love of Christ.

Having said all of this, it is important to conclude by emphasizing that Barna’s challenge must be taken seriously. We must wake up – a fire alarm is sounding and it is not a drill. If we reject, and I am rejecting, his solution to the crisis in discipleship, we must decide how a solution may be brought forward. God may use your denominational leaders to stimulate this solution, but I believe it is the local pastors through whom the Spirit will speak to bring the needed remedy. I will point out a few contours that the solution may have, and not have.

Certainly, prayer and revival are foundational to a solution. However, simply using these as clichés to blow off the issue will get us nowhere. True strategies to bring about meaningful prayer must be put into place. And we must ask ourselves “What might revival look like in the current context?”

A certain counter-cultural attitude needs to be nurtured among us again. In the conclusion of his essay on the past fifty years of evangelicalism, Mark Noll ponders if our greatest strength – ability to understand and adapt to the contemporary culture – has become our greatest weakness. If you really start to think about this, it becomes very painful very fast.

If we are going to step beyond adaptation to culture to calling people to authentic kingdom life, we are going to have to return to a personal practice of serious prayer, serious exegesis, and serious preaching/teaching.

I both encourage and ask you to begin this journey – together!